The finals of Slugfest XII (http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....alifying-Event) just concluded, and so I wanted to share the deck lists that I used to win this tournament. I also wanted to encourage anyone else who participated and wants to share their deck lists to reply to this post with their lists, or make their own posts, which will help analyze some of the results and see what decks worked well, etc. I also wanted to explain some of my tech choices, as I have been asked a couple times about some of them.
What is Slugfest? Deck Selection Strategy for the format
Slugfest is a best of 7 in which you bring 2 shadow heroes and 2 human heroes. You play your heroes in any order without repeating any for the first four games, and then do this again if there is no winner yet. Importantly, the first game has a random start, while the second game you know who has First Turn Advantage (FTA) and who is going second. Because of this, I knew I wanted to bring at least 1 midrange/control-oriented deck that can comfortably go second, and 1 aggressive deck that can do well going first. I also wanted to bring a diversity of decks so that my opponent cannot easily predict my next deck and therefore has a harder time choosing which deck to bring.
Deck One: Haste Bloodfang
There aren't a lot of decks in Shadow Era that prefer going second, but one of them is Haste Bloodfang (because of Wulven Prophet). The other shadow deck that does really well going second is Lakmire Darkclaw, but I personally think it is less consistent, and I expected players to tech heavily against it. I made a forum post about this deck, but I have since updated it:
Hero: Bloodfang (48 cards)
Ally (20):
2x Bloodpack Shaman
4x Wulven Prophet
2x Wulven Predator
2x Wulven Scout
4x Wulven Tinker
2x Howlfang, Terror of the Vale
4x Crusher of the Weak
Ability (23):
4x Midnight Howl
4x Blood Moon
2x Death from Above
4x Captured Prey
4x Will to Fight
1x Wulven Resilience
2x Confluence of Fate
2x Torn Apart
Location (4):
4x Lakmire: Training Outpost
Deck Code: 985290B
Why 48 cards?
It is true that consistency is super important in Shadow Era. That said, there are three large dilemmas that anyone building a Haste Bloodfang deck has to solve. The first problem is that you ideally want to run 4 Will to Fight and 4 Midnight Howl, because hasting your allies and hitting face is the main win condition. One option is to only run 3 or so of these abilities. This is more consistent, but also means that sometimes you cannot eek out that extra bit of damage to win the game against a control-based hero. The second problem is that to activate Lakmire, you need to have a Wulven Ally on the field. One option is to cut some of the 3cc allies, like Wulven Scout or Wulven Predator, to get down to 40 cards. This, however, significantly hurts the deck's curve. One of the most basic rules I try to follow when building ally-based decks is to have at least 8 allies that I can play on turn 3. Turn 3 is so important because missing it means you have often lost the board entirely, something that is crucial for any deck. Additionally, having more 3cc allies works very well with Howlfang, Terror of the Vale. Some people will cut Howlfang, which makes sense if you are not running many 3cc allies, but the ability to play 9cc worth of cards for just 6cc (or for free, with BF's ability) is extremely strong. It can entirely swing the game around, and is basically instant board presence. Finally, the last problem is that there are certain allies, namely Sorcerer of Endia, Braxnorian Soldier, and Towering Brute, that completely shut down this deck if they can stick on the field. One possibility would have been to remove Torn Apart and Death from Above, but this would leave the deck too vulnerable to these allies. Since I could not cut any cards from the deck due to these 3 problems, I decided to just break one of the supposed rules of Shadow Era deck-building and run a 48 card deck. While I have lost a couple games due to drawing all attachments or bricking, I personally think this deck is a lot more consistent than other 48 card decks because of the insane draw power and the ability of Wulven Prophet to seek any attachment from the deck. Because I have so many ways to draw cards, I actually deck out relatively quickly, which can be a problem against control heroes. Having more than 40 cards ended up being very relevant in a game against CharlieD's Zhanna. I had 0 cards in my deck, and would have surely lost the game had I only had 40 cards.
Wulven Resilience: This card is a nice tech choice because it can remove Captured Prey from your allies, which can be very useful against other Lakmire builds. It is also a neat way to increase an ally's attack by 3 and is also some light damage reduction all for 1cc, something I used to great effect in my final game against TJ Vanity's Loest. The fact that this card is searchable means you only have to run 1.
Only 2 Confluence of Fate: Confluence of Fate is the deck's main draw engine, but you can afford to only run 2 because Prophet can simply tutor it out. Given the amount of attachment hate, I think running a third would not hurt too much.
No Eye of the Dark Forest: Eye of the Dark Forest is an amazing card, but I decided not to run it because Towering Brute is immune to it. Instead, I opted for Death from Above, which is a bit easier to use in the early game before the hero power is live. I don't think I ever saw Towering Brute in Slugfest, but I didn't regret this choice because Death from Above saved me many times in the early game against Sorcerer and other early game threats.
No Ley Line Nexus, Pathfinder's Machete: I decided against these tech choices because of consistency. I get that this is really ironic coming from me, especially since I run a 48 card deck, but I tried running a 50+ card BF in qm and it was just no good. There is a limit to how much you can stuff into one deck.
Deck Two: Shield Elementalis
I really wanted to bring my Kiruth Gravebone to Slugfest, but ultimately decided not to because I needed something more reliable, and I had a bad experience bringing Kiruth Gravebone to Champion's League. This deck is pretty much my WC Elementalis deck with one additional card: Accumulate.
Hero: Elementalis (46 cards)
Ally (26):
4x Caged Savage
4x Rapacious Vermin
2x Stardust Transfuser
2x Morbid Acolyte
4x Voracious Arachnid
4x Murderous Hulk
3x Stardust Extractor
2x Stardust Ampliflyer
1x Axiom the Soulless
Ability (13):
4x Bad Santa
2x Permeate
1x Accumulate
3x Power Surge
1x Energy Discharge
2x Mind Control
Item (4):
4x Gold-Laced Shield
Location (2):
2x Tisay: Volcanic Springs
Deck Code: 894415B
Why 46 cards?
Honestly, this deck has simply been tried and true for me. Every time I try and run a slimmer deck, I get heavily punished for it. There are a few reasons that a fatter Elementalis can work well. Firstly, the reason this deck is fatter than normal is because of the large amount of early game allies and low cost abilities. Because there is a large proportion of low cost cards, running a larger deck does not necessarily mean that the early game is weaker. Additionally, Elementalis tends to be a one-dimension deck where you simply try and make the biggest beatsticks you possibly can. The opponent will exploit this whenever possible by disabling your allies, killing them outright, or retreating them back into your hand. That's why it is super important to have at least some back-ups available.
4 Bad Santa: The secret sauce to any Shield Elementalis deck is Bad Santa. I truly think that this is the card that makes Shield Elementalis so great. The big problem with Elementalis is that it (and Elementals in general) has super weak draw. Giving the opponent cards always hurts, but in Elementalis is can be ok just because of the fact that your allies are so much beefier than the opponent's allies, and so the opponent often has to spend multiple cards just to get rid of one of your allies. Because this exchange rate is so favorable, it makes sense sometimes to allow the opponent to draw 3 cards so that you can keep putting down allies every turn.
Tisay: Volcanic Springs: I think this location works incredibly well in Elementalis because it makes it much harder for your opponent to efficiently take your allies out of commission. Cards like Anklebreaker, Layarian Seductress, and Snow Sapphire are in a lot of decks. I actually don't think I used this card that much this Slugfest though, partially because I didn't draw into it very often, so this is a candidate for removal. I would keep it in the deck for QM for sure, since you run into so many stall strategies there for some reason.
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